| Address: | 81 Hesse Street |
|---|---|
| Suburb: | Queenscliff |
Former Wesleyan Church – 1868. 79 Hesse St.
Former Methodist Church – 1888. 81 Hesse St.
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church – 1862. 83 Hesse St.
The adjacency of the two former Methodist churches and the neighbouring St Andrew’s create an ecclesiastical precinct in Queenscliff’s Hesse St and demarcate a place of transition in the streetscape between the commercial section of the north and the residential quarter of the south.
Built to the design of Geelong Surveyor Robert Balding in 1968, the Former Wesleyan Church saw limited service due to Queenscliff’s expanding population and the swell of seasonal residents. Just fifteen years after its completion, plans were hatched to relocate the congregation to Stokes street with a with a site having been purchased. Unable to sell the Wesleyan Church site to finance the new build, it was instead decided in 1888 to build adjacent to the existing church (converting it into a Sunday school) and to a design by architects Oakden, Addison and Kemp.
While St Andrew’s continues to function as a church, the two former Methodist churches have undergone retrofit: the former Wesleyan church housing a small commercial operation while the larger Methodist church having since been a commercial premise, a café and more recently transformed into a residence with the provision for street level retail trading.
(Lovell Chen Architects. ‘Individual Property Citation’, Queenscliffe Heritage Study, 2009).
‘Queenscliff Churches (Post card)’, n.d. Upper left St. George the Martyr Church, built 1863-64 and lower left, the Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, built 1867. (Image courtesy of the Queenscliffe Historical Museum).
Left: 'Two Methodist churches, Queenscliff', 1910. Right: ‘St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church’, photographed 1908. (Images courtesy of the Queenscliffe Historical Museum).
